Daniel 10:2,3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I Daniel was mourning The reason of Daniel's fasting and mourning might be, either because many of the Jews, through slothfulness and indifference, still remained in the land of their captivity, though they had liberty to return to their own land, not knowing how to value the privileges offered them; or, as Usher thinks, because he had heard that the adversaries of the Jews had begun to obstruct the building of the temple. Calmet, however, is of opinion, that his sorrow arose principally from the obscurity which the prophet found in the prophecies revealed to him; which, indeed, may be partly collected from the angel's touching upon no other cause of mourning. In consequence of Daniel's fasting, &c., the angel appears, and explains to him, in a clearer manner, what had been more obscurely revealed in the preceding visions. Three full weeks Hebrew, three weeks of days. So we read of a month of days, Genesis 29:4; Numbers 11:20, where the English reads, a whole month. But the phrase may be used here to distinguish them from the weeks of years prophesied of in chap. 9. I ate no pleasant bread “There seems to have been two sorts of fasting among the Jews; either a total abstinence from food of all sorts for at least a whole day, which David observed at the funeral of Abner, 2 Samuel 3:35; or a partial abstinence from the better kinds of food, which lasted for a considerable time, as in the case before us. The prophet made likewise an alteration in his dress, and did not anoint himself as usual after the eastern manner, 2 Samuel 12:20; Matthew 6:17; for the Jews never anointed themselves in times of mourning and humiliation.”